A distraught woman police officer yesterday begged the mum who aborted her baby at 39 weeks to reveal where she hid his body.

Pleading with 35-year-old Sarah Catt, Chief Inspector Kerrin Smith said: “We would ask her again, ‘Please, tell us where his body is.’ It will not be over for me until we have found him.”

A judge told the mum-of-two what she had done was one step short of murder.

Described as “cold and calculating,” Catt aborted her child almost at full term with a drug she bought on the internet.

Married Catt had become pregnant by her former colleague at a law firm, an on-off lover of seven years. She turned to web after learning she was beyond the legal 24 weeks limit for abortion.

Plea: Chief Inspector Kerrin Smith (Image: Ben Lack Photography Ltd)

Jailing Catt, Mr Justice Cooke told her: “What you did was end the life of a child capable of being born alive.

“If he had been born in the next few days and you had then killed him you would be charged with murder.

“What you have done is rob an apparently healthy child, vulnerable and defenceless of the life he was about to commence.”

He told her had she not pleaded guilty, the sentence would have been 12 years.

During the hour-long hearing, at Leeds crown court, Catt showed no emotion. The judge said the offence she admitted, of administering a poison with intent to procure a miscarriage, was “between manslaughter and murder”.

Mr Simon Waley, prosecuting, said the local health authority was notified Catt was pregnant but she failed to contact them over anti-natal care or register the birth and police were alerted.

It is believed she terminated her pregnancy in May 2010 before a family trip to France.

Police found Catt, from Sherburn in Elmet, North Yorks, had searched the internet asking “Where can I get an illegal abortion?” and whether police could search medical records and charge her with child destruction.

On May 10, a parcel she ordered online was delivered to her home from Mumbai in India, containing misoprostol, which can be used to induce a pregnancy.

She later told a psychiatrist she took the drug while her husband was away and delivered the baby by herself on her bathroom floor.

She said the child was not breathing or moving so she buried his body – but refuses to reveal the location of his remains.

Verdict: Catt was jailed at Leeds crown court (Image: PA)

Officers searched a previous address with specialist dogs and radar. DNA checks on several living and deceased babies have also been made.

While at university studying maths in 1999, she gave birth and handed the child over for adoption, keeping it secret from her parents. In 2000, a year after marrying her long-term partner, she had an abortion with his agreement.

She then had two children with him. He only heard about their second child’s birth when she called from hospital in labour.

Her husband – believed to be staying with relatives – is standing by her.

Mrs Frances Oldham QC, defending, said the case was a “grave offence”, involving an intelligent woman with a “very complicated emotional and obstetrics history”.

Before the hearing Catt, who worked at a translation firm, told her barrister she was sorry for what she had done.

Chief Inspector Smith, of North Yorkshire Police, said: “This was an unusual, disturbing and very complicated case to investigate.

“She has shown no remorse for what she did. She is cold, calculating and emotionless.

“One of the difficulties was convincing other parties in the criminal justice system that a woman could conceal a full term pregnancy from all around her, even her husband, and that she could give birth and then carry on every day activities.”